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But Gavin didn’t budge. “No. Table thirteen, out the door.”
The next few hours passed in a mercifully mind-numbing blur, and he went through the motions with fast feet and a heart full of broken glass. In time, he knew he’d get used to Sloane not being around—in truth, she’d spent less than two months with them, so it shouldn’t be such a daunting task. Eventually, he’d be able to walk past the guest bedroom without thinking of that first night they’d spent together, tangled up in his high thread-count sheets. He’d be able to look at the fireplace and not remember how the soft light reflected in her eyes to make them sparkle when she typed furiously on her laptop. And he’d be able to look at Bree and not see the bottomless sadness on her face as she looked around the cottage and saw Sloane in every corner, too.
Christ, it had to get better than this, because it sure as hell couldn’t get worse.
“Hey, chef. We’re starting to wind down in the dining room. If it’s okay with you, I’m going to leave some of the paperwork for the morning and head home with Bree.” While Gavin was less than thrilled at the prospect of crossing the threshold to his empty cottage with his head full of memories, it was time to start facing the facts.
Sloane was gone, and she wasn’t coming back. No matter how in love with her he was.
Carly wiped her hands on her apron and fastened him with a glance. “Sure.” Her gaze shifted over his shoulder, eyes going momentarily wide before she blanked her expression again, and he turned in confusion.
“Oh, hey, Stephanie.” Gavin looked at the bartender with a tired smile. “I’m heading out for the night, so just update your tallies before you leave. I’ll grab them in the morning.”
The bartender split a look between Carly and Gavin before holding up a bar slip between her first two fingers. “You’re not out the door yet. Someone ordered a bottle of red that’s gonna cost big bucks. Inventory says we have one in the wine cellar, so here you go.”
It was standard operating procedure any time an order came in for a bottle of wine costing over a hundred dollars for the manager to handle the service from cellar to glass. Given his penchant for finer vintages, this was never a rule Gavin balked at; on the contrary, it always gave him a bit of a thrill to have his hands on a bottle of something that could be so well appreciated.
For the first time ever, he couldn’t care less.
“Okay. What am I getting?”
Stephanie’s eyes darted to the pass, where Carly and Adrian were suddenly busy with a round of last-minute dishes heading out the door. “Um, looks like a really pricey Bordeaux. Glad you’re opening it. Personally, those expensive bottles give me the shakes. Enjoy.”
A really pricey Bordeaux. Wait a second…there were only a couple really high-end reds on their wine list. He turned the bar slip Stephanie had put in his hand. No way it could be—
1999 Château Bellevue Mondotte.
It was the same bottle of wine he and Sloane had impulsively enjoyed on the night of Carly’s wedding. The same bottle of wine that, given the chance, he would pick above all others.
For a second, Gavin’s world tilted. Then his head snapped up to meet Carly’s clear-as-a-bell gaze.
“Someone order a doozy?” she asked, but he clamped down on the feeling surging in his chest.
“Just a nice bottle of red. I’ll grab it from the wine cellar. See you tomorrow.”
Gavin made his way to the back of the kitchen, taking the steps to the wine cellar with his mind spinning. They hadn’t sold a bottle of Bellevue Mondotte in almost a year, and he’d even wondered if it made sense to replace the one he had bought that night. Except as the chief consultant for wine orders, he’d known that they should have one on-hand. It was one of the best Bordeaux in that price range. No better experience for your money.
And, apparently, he wasn’t the only one who thought so.
Gavin stopped at the dimly lit section where they housed the reds and inhaled the dry, crisp scent of wood and cork. His fingers found the grooved space where the bottle reclined, delicately notched in the resting place where he’d put it upon delivery, and he slid it from the shelf. He stuffed back the memory of the last time he’d been down here to take a bottle from this spot, and the delicious possibility he’d felt upon doing something so capricious.
Hell of a lot of irony in how right something could feel, only to leave you picking up the pieces once it shattered in your hands.
“Enough,” he told himself, closing his fingers over the neck of the bottle and covering the space back up to La Dolce Vita in even strides. He placed the bottle on the bar while he grabbed a wine key and two glasses, running his eyes over the crystal with quick care to make sure it was ready to go.
“Hey. Is that a good one?” Bree asked, coming up across from him to prop her elbows on the polished mahogany bar.
Gavin laughed, even though there was little humor in it. “You could say that. You want to watch me open it? It’s not every day you see the cork come out of a three-hundred-dollar bottle of red.”
“Holy moly,” Bree gasped, eyeing him as if he were nuts. “Why do grown-ups do such crazy stuff?”
Now his laugh was genuine, albeit soft. “Good question. I’m headed to the dining room with this, but after I’m done, we can go home if you want.”
“Okay. Can I really watch you open it?”
Gavin did a mental tally of open tables. “Sure. Table fourteen should be close enough, and it’s empty. You know the one by the fireplace in front?”
Bree nodded. “Yeah. Just let me get my backpack from the office.”
